AMD 8 CORE vs INTEL I5 - What's better for games?

[thexyad]

I am looking to upgrade my CPU after a few people suggested that it's the bottleneck for my graphics in games like Dragon Age Inquisition.

I have a guy who usually does my upgrades but he's insisting a 8-core AMD FX CPU is faster and cheaper than an I5.

He's quoting me $275 for an 8-core AMD (3.3GHz or higher) and an upgraded motherboard. I thought I'd ask the smart people on these forums what they thought

 

[Raiin]

if your not gonna overclock a i5 +h97 will run you about 230-250$
theres no reason to go 8320 for gaming when you can go i5+mobo for about the same price

 

[slyu9213]

i5, unless you can get a decent motherboard and 8-Core for much cheaper.

FX 8310 ~$80 after MIR and $10 Off + maybe a MSI 970 Gaming ~$99 = ~$180. Not bad at the cost of a i5 CPU. Go with what your gut tells you though

 

[thexyad]

Where did you find FX 8310 for $80?

Also, will I see a definite improvement in FPS over my AMD Phenom II X4 840 3.2Ghz with 8GB RAM and a GTX 660 2GB graphics card, if I keep the RAM and gfx card the same?

I'm trying to get ready for The Witcher 3

 

[Raiin]

Where did you find FX 8310 for $80?

Also, will I see a definite improvement in FPS over my AMD Phenom II X4 840 3.2Ghz with 8GB RAM and a GTX 660 2GB graphics card, if I keep the RAM and gfx card the same?

I'm trying to get ready for The Witcher 3

The witcher 3 is going to be the Crysis 1 of 2015, in PAX it was running with SLI 980s just to get 60FPS, if so the requirements listed on steam are for 1080p 30FPS, which means a 660 will get something like 10-15FPS, making it unplayable, hopefully they will do something about the optimization cause running SLI 980s just for 60FPS will be ridiculous

 

[thexyad]

Where did you find FX 8310 for $80?

Also, will I see a definite improvement in FPS over my AMD Phenom II X4 840 3.2Ghz with 8GB RAM and a GTX 660 2GB graphics card, if I keep the RAM and gfx card the same?

I'm trying to get ready for The Witcher 3

The witcher 3 is going to be the Crysis 1 of 2015, in PAX it was running with SLI 980s just to get 60FPS, if so the requirements listed on steam are for 1080p 30FPS, which means a 660 will get something like 10-15FPS, making it unplayable, hopefully they will do something about the optimization cause running SLI 980s just for 60FPS will be ridiculous

Well regardless, playing Dragon Age Inquisition and seeing it drop to 15-20 FPS in heavily populated areas sucks. I don't want 60FPS but at least not below 30FPS.

 

[slyu9213]

Where did you find FX 8310 for $80?

Also, will I see a definite improvement in FPS over my AMD Phenom II X4 840 3.2Ghz with 8GB RAM and a GTX 660 2GB graphics card, if I keep the RAM and gfx card the same?

I'm trying to get ready for The Witcher 3

If you live in the US, Tiger Direct has an OEM FX 8310 for $114.99. Then there is a $25 Mail in Rebate that makes it $89.99. Finally if you spend $100 or more with Visa Checkout or something like that you get $10 off. Giving you the final price of $79.99 before shipping or if your location is taxed.

I can't say how much of a boost you will get from going from a Phenom II X4 to a 8-Core especially on a middle end GPU. Going from a Athlon X4 860K my FPS went up a bit, especially minimums. Once you get a high end video card, which you need to play Witcher 3 on High/Max settings the FX 8310 etc would help out a lot.